U.K. headquartered wind turbine blade repair and maintenance provider GEV Wind Power has merged with Wind Power Lab (WPL), a Danish firm providing intelligent technology based blade solutions to wind park operators.
GEV provides field blade repair and maintenance services to wind farm manufacturers and operators in the UK, Europe and the US, operating both onshore and in challenging offshore environments.
Based in Denmark, WPL provides blade expertise and machine learning enabled services for all wind farm park owners. Asset managers worldwide can utilize WPL services for identification of blade defects and data driven blade repair recommendations, and to optimize blade maintenance strategies.
As a combined force, the organization will operate with a global footprint and be able to provide a comprehensive range of cost effective predictive blade maintenance services. The merger will also create the only independent service provider that is able to provide services to the whole rotor blade value chain and introduce to a wider client base new technologies such as blade internal drone inspections.
The existing management teams, led by CEOs David Fletcher and Anders Røpke, will continue to lead their respective businesses.
The combined group is backed by Bridges Fund Management, a specialist private equity investor focused on the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive economy.
David Fletcher, CEO of GEV, said, “Over the last few years GEV has established itself as a global market-leader in wind turbine blade repair and maintenance. We are now excited to be merging with WPL as we embark on our next growth phase and look to provide technology enabled solutions to help our clients be smarter about their long term blade blade maintenance strategies.”
Anders Røpke, CEO of WPL, said, “Access to high caliber blade expertise is key for any wind turbine owner, in order to decide on blade repair scope and maintenance strategies. At WPL we make sure owners only repair what is needed, when it is needed, saving both time, money and unnecessary down time for our clients. We are excited to be merging with GEV in order to further assist our clients by offering a complete blade maintenance solution.”
Jon Andrew, Executive Chairman of GEV, said, “This is an incredibly exciting tie up of two very complimentary business; it is a mixture of technology, engineering and focused, wind turbine expertise and we are delighted to be creating a group that becomes the go to blade specialist in the industry. We can’t wait to get going and service our customers together.”